Condition Report 3: Art History in Africa: Debating Localization, Legitimization and New Solidarities
Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: all photos by Ruth Simbao except where otherwise notedRuth Simbao: Following on from the African Arts dialogue, “Zimbabwe Mobilizes: ICAC's Shift from Coup de Grăce to Cultural Coup” (Simbao et al. 2017) this dialogue considers another important event in the visual arts that recently took place on the African continent. Like the International Conference on African Cultures (ICAC) that was held in Harare in 2017, this event in Dakar contributes in important ways towards a shift of the center of gravity of the global academy, particularly the study of art history in and of Africa.1The Raw Material Company's Condition Report 3 symposium took place at the Musée des Civilisations Noires (Museum of Black Civilizations) in Dakar, Senegal September 20–22, 2018 (Fig. 1). Organized by Koyo Kouoh (Fig. 2) and Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi, the workshop was themed Art History in Africa, and discussions focused on ways of localizing art histories; the role of Senegal—in particular Dak'art—in shaping the arc of art history in Africa; the history of “African art history”; platforms that expand conventional praxes of art history; and the importance of situating Africa as the legitimizing site of knowledge creation. Invited presenters were Salah Hassan (Fig. 3) and Paul Goodwin (keynote speakers), Sylvain Sankalé, Massamba Mbaye, Peju Laiwola, Elizabeth Giorgis, Suzana Sousa, Ruth Simbao, Babacar M. Diop, Emi Koide (Fig. 4), Dominique Malaquais, Zulu Mbaye, Yaëlle Biro, Susan Gagliardi, Dulcie Abrahams Altass, Eva Barois de Caelvel (Fig. 5), Iheanyi Onwuegbucha, Sean O'Toole, Ntone Edjabe, Bonaventure Ndikung, El Hadji Malick Ndiyaye, and Nana Oforiatta Ayim (Fig. 6).Far from being a comprehensive analysis of every conversation at Condition Report 3, this dialogue includes the reflections of a few participants on some of the issues that emerged. Importantly, not all of these authors or all of the participants at the symposium share the same views. By the time participants reached the final plenary session and engaged in lively discussion with the audience, it was very clear that these conversations had only just begun. Evidently there is great need for scholars, curators, and artists working in Africa—whether at universities, museums, galleries, or independently—to continue to debate how we create and shape our knowledge and how we do so in collaboration with other people locally as well as globally.The Raw Material Company positioned the city of Dakar as a “protagonist” of this event, with the symposium “enquiring deeply into the histories of its locality and bringing these to the fore through site visits and a commitment to holding discussions in spaces that are the stages of new art histories.”2 As one might expect, participants went to the Musée de l'Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire (IFAN Museum) where they met with curator El Hadj Malick Ndiaye. Of particular interest, though, was the fact that the symposium was hosted in the Musée des Civilisations Noires a couple of months before the new building officially opened.According to Raw's Dulcie Abrahams Altass, the choice of this, at the time, yet-to-be-launched venue was a deliberate intervention.3 The 150,000 square feet, four-story, circular museum, which was built with Chinese money (costing over US$30 million) and designed by the state-owned Beijing Institute of Architectural Design (Brown 2018), is situated opposite Dakar's Grand National Theatre, which opened in 2011 and was also funded by the Chinese. The Art History in Africa delegates convened in a cavernous room with signage that was only in Mandarin and English. Speakers were staged in front of a large wall clad in copper (Fig. 7), which, as Dominique Malaquais stressed, raises important questions about labor, resource extraction, and the violence that often inhabits our spaces.Beyond the typical question about whether China's presence in Africa is neocolonial (a question that is too often asked and answered in over-simplified ways; see Yan and Sautman 2013), what are the implications of meeting in a museum that was a dream of Léopold Senghor in 1964 and was finally realized with the assistance of the Chinese government fifty-two years later? Citing “David Hume's canonically illiterate discourse on Africa,” Donald Trump's “shit hole” comment, and the “bankruptcy of European contemporary discourses and practices on Africa,” the museum's press statement explained that the choice to turn away from the west and accept Chinese aid was deliberate (Brown 2018). At the opening of the museum in December 2018, the Chinese ambassador to Senegal, Xia Huang, stressed solidarity when he recalled the “common fate” and “friendship” that “unites” Africa and China (Brown 2018). How, though, can we reconsider solidarities of the twenty-first century that function beyond the “Big Man speak” of government and capitalist investment, and how might meaningful solidarities be manifested in spaces such as the Musée des Civilisations Noires?As the presence of this new museum reveals, the current geopolitical landscape is very different to what it was when the history of “African art history”—at least the dominant history in the academy that largely positions the west as the progenitor of a particular type of academic study—began. This new geopolitical landscape demands an intricate analysis of the deep complexities of global interaction and global south5 possibilities if the dominant history of “African art history” is to be meaningfully unsettled.On the first day of the symposium an audience member from South America asked why western-styled art history always turns to 1989 (and western exhibitions at that time) as the key geopolitical turning point, when this continues to uphold a western slant and timeline.6 The fact that this question was not sufficiently addressed is, in my view, a missed opportunity to earnestly reconsider the import of contemporary geopolitical shifts and to take seriously the art history research of various Asian, Latin American, and other global south contexts. In my view, the engagement with theoretical and experiential resonances across global souths needs to be part of the ongoing process of delinking from worn-out western art histories.During his keynote address, “In and Out of Africa: African Art History as a Paradox!” Salah Hassan recalled the solidarity of the African independence eras and stressed the need to reclaim or reignite an axis of solidarities. In the discussion that followed, Elizabeth Giorgis (professor in art history, criticism, and theory at Addis Ababa University) argued that, working on the African continent, she doesn't experience the solidarity from outside that Hassan talked about. In response, Hassan stressed that a revival of solidarity should be a goal—something that we need to strive for in our present context.7What might solidarities mean in the current geopolitical landscape that has shifted significantly since the early anticolonial and independence era? Certainly, there is much value in Hassan's suggestion that we need to revisit and reread the contributions of black intellectuals such as Léopold Senghor, Aimé Césaire, and Stuart Hall. How might we do so within a broader contemporary climate of returning to and reassessing solidarities, as can be seen in the revived interest in the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia, where leaders from twenty-nine Asian and African states met to discuss anticolonial struggles and the rebuilding of their own spaces “in their own image” (Prashad 2007: 48; emphasis added). In his book Making a World After Empire: The Bandung Moment and its Political Afterlives, Christopher Lee (2010: 3–4) asks how we create a new “geopolitical communitas” and how can we recuperate solidarities of the past in ways that are relevant today? As we consider art history in Africa, what facile solidarities do we need to shake? And what new solidarities should we embrace that enable us to strengthen art histories of the African continent?In my presentation, “Geopolitics and the Arts of Africa: A Walk with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o,” I argued that it is critical—as Ngũgĩ suggested when fighting for the decolonization of the study of English literature at the University of Nairobi in the 1960s—to begin on the ground where one places one's feet (Ngũgĩ 2012:39). For an analysis of art history in Africa this means that the starting point should be particular art histories in various African contexts, then cross-continental comparisons, and then a consideration of various global south situations before assessment is made in relation to the Euro-American history of “African art history.” In line with Ngũgĩ's notion of decolonizing curricula, this would radically change what is viewed as the legitimizing measuring rod (Ngũgĩ 2012: 42–43).The Condition Report 3 program asserts that, “methodologies and epistemological frameworks for scholarship have yet to shed their historical west-centric frames of reference,”8 and the symposium aimed to find ways of delinking from old frameworks and grappling with new, locally driven epistemologies. As such, I was surprised to hear the assertion made by a participant in the final discussion that no one on the African continent is teaching “African art history.” What could such an assertion mean and what does it reveal about processes of legitimization?I imagine that such a is the that no one in Africa is teaching “African art history” as it and is in Euro-American contexts. this were the the then the to the art on the African would be be would be a and a in the and in art history on the African continent for I have the in these art history are often from visual or art in art history in their of and in one art history there can be as as art history of such as “African or to or of an to that positioned western knowledge as and other as for the In art history on the African continent is largely within art or visual which means that (and often in few people art history and art theory (and only art do not and are to a of beyond their the are (and there is across the continent this it is too to the of or to conversations about value and there are in the art history of the just as there are in the teaching of art history in it is important to the of in of a of knowledge (Simbao particularly with the of and that the “African art history” of the is also important to the ways in which African and platforms are at the of the very by the and research that a of current are on the African continent. The of art in Africa are at this time of geopolitical and epistemological I change our as we A few of I working with on with a on contemporary on of in and art history research that on and on Chinese art in contemporary South Africa, and on a of at Cultural in (a that in ways to in this At University and are the on contemporary art in on and in in this and on and the of in are just a few of current research that are of own and their own on the African continent and that are to twenty-first century epistemological of these are which I the of African in art history in the Condition Report 3 symposium has us to by the role that these and other are in shaping what art history in Africa is and be in the this in African the of platforms such as the African and the Institute of Arts and knowledge on the continent can a role in situating Africa as the legitimizing site of new art histories of the of the Koyo Kouoh and Ugochukwu-Smooth discuss their of Condition Report Suzana Sousa, and in a in considers what it means to art and Emi and the of and and African of the into of art histories of Africa in the of and considers what this might mean for the of new the African continent there are a of art history they are few and in of and to the of the often as of study art it is important to the in Africa that is large of to into academic that in the This the of art history and is on the and analysis of by African the of art and in and of from the of art history, and arts are into that are just as hosted in the of it is to consider whether this is it to room for of African art in the of or should a of art histories be the of African art history being on the continent is place outside of the academic within a that is in turn the and it in this in in to an of what a contemporary African art history, or it is also important to take into the within which these histories which art galleries, and and are of their as of and to in an often and and a and its in art history, as for to and the 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some is important questions and it is the of or returning the of solidarity that the early in I this one that such as or of that which held no the on the of the and an old the the of the and its historical that the conversations at the symposium was that of the of African art history, historical and In conversations with and at different I have that the of the historical in African art do not consider or the in its it is the in the history of the or have In that the has to do with the it has to do with its history of from one to or from one to is to that its is not always important other to its historical which is the it is to in of it is not the of African that is the it is a of its function that to its African art as a global and as an academic has yet to from its In other and there has a beyond the of the to a consideration of its such place the historical of African art at the of and was in a of at Condition Report 3, which the of African art history and how that continues to and 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Source: African Arts
DOI: 10.1162/afar_a_00456
Language: English
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2945997411